Funds recovered under Buhari will not be re-looted – Finance Minister

The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, has assured that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has put in place measures to ensure that funds recovered by its agencies would not be re-looted.

She gave the assurance at a press conference on the World Bank, IMF meetings in Washington.

According to the Minister, the country has a single account for reconciling recovered funds, to avoid re-looting.

She said, “We have a recovery account. All the recovered funds go into the recovery account.

“What we are trying to do is to make sure that there is real control, that was why we created a central recovery account. What we also discovered is that so many agencies are recovering and we must keep an eye on those recoveries, otherwise there is the risk of re-looting.

“So, all the agencies that have recovered funds send us their returns monthly and then we sweep it into a central account which is kept by the Accountant General, so that they can be reconciled.

“Some of the cash that is recovered, we have to make sure it goes into the bank. You’d be surprised; some agencies will recover cash, and they think it is evidence, and we are saying no, its money, put it in the bank.

“This is something that is new and I think it is a good thing. As we recover more, we get better at it. It is a new thing in Nigeria.”